


Tumbling HnG

by esama



Series: Tumbling Snippets [3]
Category: Hikaru no Go
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, M/M, Pre-Slash, Snippets, Swearing, many many oneshots, many many plots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-17
Updated: 2016-07-27
Packaged: 2018-01-25 11:54:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 15,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1647716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/esama/pseuds/esama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snippets done to prompts from Tumblr. Shindou Hikaru centric. Slash, crack, au, etc.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Broken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt by prancinginpurgatory: betting pools, (car) accident resulting in broken bone/s, getting lost in a new city

Waya did a surprised double take as Shindou limped in. "The hell did you do now?" he asked, taking in the crutches, the thickness of the other's right foot.

"Ballet," Shindou answered with a grin. "Obviously. Those pirouettes are the devil."

"No, seriously. What the hell, Shindou?"

"I did a heroic slow motion style lunge to save a cat from being run over by a car."

"Shindou, for fuck's sake."

"The elves stole my funny bone, man. I had to get it replaced surgically," Shindou answered.

Waya glared at him. "Seriously, man, are you okay?"

Shindou laughed lifting a hand from the grip of the left crutch and waving an arm. "It's just a broken ankle, man, I'm not dying or anything," he said, and limped his way towards the elevators. "It was a soccer accident. A teammate sorta fell on my foot, wrenched it almost right off. It was fun."

"Fun, yeah, sure," Waya said, giving him a suspicious look. "Did you have to get surgery?" he asked, morbidly fascinated. It wasn't really common for Go players to get injuries, after all – actually, the most he had ever seen was tennis elbows and carpal tunnel syndrome and stuff like that. Nothing like _broken bones_. Go wasn't exactly an injury rich environment.

"Yeah, a bit. It wasn't too bad, though – didn't need anaesthesia or anything, just stuff to make it not hurt while they operated. I even got to watch, it was freaky. Got a couple of pins there now too," Shindou shrugged awkwardly. "Going through airport security will be interesting from here on, but whatever."

"You _watched them operate on your foot?!_ " Waya asked, horrified.

"Yeah. I mean, it's not like they needed to knock me out or anything, since it was just the foot," Shindou shrugged. "They offered, though, since stuff like this can freak people out but since it was my foot, I wanted to see what they did to it."

"Oh my _god_ ," Waya said, shuddering and stepped after him into the elevator. "You're insane man."

Shindou just grinned, the freak, and the elevator doors closed after them. "I even got pictures," he said proudly.

"For the love of god, never show them to me!"

Shindou just laughed, and the elevator released them onto the second floor – where Touya Akira was waiting for them. And, apparently, he too hadn't heard about Shindou's injury because his eyes widened immediately at the sight of him.

"What happened to you?!" was the first thing to come out of his mouth.

"Rabid wolf attack," Shindou answered seriously.

" _Shindou_."

"Zombies, man. They were everywhere – I just couldn't get away."

"He broke it playing soccer," Waya interjected, shaking his head.

"Again?" Touya asked, waving a hand demandingly at Shindou.

"Well, in my defence, it's the first time I broke an ankle playing soccer," Shindou answered. "The last time it was a wrist, you might recall."

"Oh for – maybe it's time you try and get another hobby. Soccer's going to kill you at this rate," Touya said, running a hand over his face.

"But _mo-om,_ all my friends play soccer!" Shindou mockingly moaned at him, while awkwardly toeing his single shoe off and knocking it towards the shelves with one of the crutches. "Stop being a mother hen – it's just a damn foot. It's not going to affect my game play."

"What won't affect your game play?" a voice asked, and then Ogata Seiji, just coming up the stairs, stopped. "Shindou," he said, in tones of exasperation. "What now?"

"I fell from heaven. The landing was rough."

"He broke it playing _soccer_ ," Touya said pointedly.

"Well of course he did," Ogata said, rolling his eyes.

"What is this, an intervention?" Shindou asked, looking between them. "Are you going to tell me you love me and that the first step on the road to recovery is realising that I have a problem? Because I seriously haven't had enough caffeine for that this morning. Or _alcohol_."

"Can you still play with that foot?" Ogata asked, ignoring him.

"I don't know. I usually play by hand, it might be a bit weird if I started using my foot all of a sudden. Especially when it's all wrapped up," Shindou rolled his eyes and turned around, starting to limp his way towards the Room of Profound Darkness. "Piss off, all of you."

Waya sighed. "This is going to be a mess," he said.

"Probably. But it's Shindou. Shindou's always a mess," Ogata muttered, taking out a packet of cigarettes and shaking one out. "Come on," he said then. "I got money riding on this."

"You bet money on Shindou's game? _Again_?" Touya asked, as they followed the elder pro towards the observation room.

"I always bet money on his games when ever he plays in the Room of Profound Darkness. It's tradition by now."

"Did you bet for him or against him?"

"For, of course."

"Hm."

Waya shook his head and followed them. The observation room was so far empty – the game wouldn't start for another twenty minutes or so. For once, Shindou was actually early. On the screen, there was the empty Goban with the goke sitting on top of it. They could see Shindou's shadow as he entered and then a flash of one of the crutches as he settled down on the challenger's seat.

"How do you think this will go?" Waya asked, a little nervous as they sat down. "With that leg…"

"We shall see, won't we?" Ogata said, lighting the cigarette and taking an inhale. "Should be interesting anyway."

"Yeah, sure. The biggest game of the _year_ and Shindou breaks his goddamn leg. Interesting is just the word for this," Touya grumbled.

Soon, he'd be challenging Kuwabara for the Honinbo Title, broken leg and all.

Interesting indeed.


	2. Coming Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt by your-own-personal-jesus: Hikaru/Ogata - coming out

Seiji watched with amusement while Shindou tried to fend off the rather enthusiastic amateur player.

The event at the San Hoshi was over, the games had been played, promotions done, and they were left with the rest of the night to spend in the hotel doing… whatever. For most of them that meant more of the same, talking about Go events, about Go, maybe playing casual games against each other or fans or amateurs – or just kicking back and drinking. Seiji fell into the latter category for the most part. The only one in the event he would've liked to play in a casual game was Shindou, really - the rest were lower dans and not especially impressive. And Shindou…

Shindou was having his usual trouble.

And no wonder really. What had been a bratty little shit of a kid had grown up to be rather striking man. The thing about Shindou was that, unlike most Go professionals, he was _sporty._ He did things like play soccer, baseball, he went jogging and frequented gyms, all for _fun_. That made him actually _built,_ while the majority of other professional Go players fell into two categories – over weight or just thin. They were people of flabby under arms and double chin, or jutting collar bones and bony wrists… where as Shindou had _biceps_ and _pectorals_ and just enough muscles to make him just slightly curvy.

Add into that the now shorter, slightly messy partially bleached hair, a carefully cultivated patch of hair on his chin, the relatively new tendency of wearing earrings and the fact that sometimes, despite being generally good natured, he could go quiet and still and that sometimes he seemed _lethally competent_ …

He stuck out like sore thumb in all the good ways.

Sure, there were better looking pros out there. Seiji himself, maybe. Akira, definitely. But where as Akira was aloof and occasionally _frosty_ in the most polite of ways, Shindou was friendly, welcoming and _sunny,_ so he all but beckoned people to come forth and have their shot at him. And women did, in droves, some with coy smiles and subtle hints, others with the subtlety of a sledge hammer. And Seiji could understand it – Shindou just seemed lively in a way that made it seem like yes, he did that, he did that _lots_ and he was probably good at it, too.

Except Seiji had never seen him actually go with any of the women that threw themselves at him. No, instead he had seen the man _squirm_ in discomfort, all but wiggle himself loose, occasionally just downright _flee_. It never stopped being hilarious, seeing some of Shindou's confidence – sometimes arrogance – be reduced to awkward stumbling mess as he tried to just run away.

He was doing that right now, slowly inching himself away from the busty red head that was all but shoving herself at him. While Seiji watched, Shindou strategically tried to manoeuvre a barstool between himself and the woman, awkward grin on his face as he wildly glanced around for escape, hands held up soothingly towards the woman. Seiji could almost hear him mentally order the woman to "stay, staayy". It was hilarious.

Then Shindou noticed him and Seiji smirked at him – only to have the 6-dan's expression brighten. He said something to the woman and then whirled and made a beeline for Seiji, leaving the woman behind him with a gob smacked look on her face.

"You just called me over because of something very important and pressing. Look the part," Shindou said, quickly pulling a chair and sitting down, back very pointedly towards the woman.

"I did, huh?" Seiji asked in amusement and lifted his glass to take a sip. Behind Shindou the woman made an _oh-shoot_ type of face and then stalked away, to the counter, to get a drink. "I think you made your ladyfriend sad."

"My _ladyfriend_ may go screw herself for all I care," Shindou grumbled and glanced very carefully over his shoulder. He visibly relaxed when the woman headed off elsewhere. "I almost wish Akira was here," he grumbled. "It's easier in events like these when he's here."

"Yeah, because everyone ends up think you're a couple," Seiji snorted. "Specifically an old married couple."

"Precisely! Easier," Shindou nodded eagerly.

Seiji arched an eyebrow at that. Usually most men would've minded that sort of thing. That Shindou preferred it was… interesting. Thoughtful, Seiji offered his glass to Shindou who was still looking a bit harried. "So, what is it?" he asked. "If you already have a girlfriend, you could just say so to them. They _should_ leave you be at that."

"Well, I don't and I don't like lying when I don't have to," Shindou grumbled and downed the last of the whiskey in one shot. "That sort of thing tends to come back and bite me on the ass anyway."

"Someone you _wish_ were your girlfriend then. The whole _my heart belongs to another_ thing should work too," Seiji said, shaking his head and Shindou just rolled his eyes. "Not that either, hm?" the elder pro murmured, even more curious now. "What is it then?" he asked and smiled slowly. "Incapable?"

"Stop being an ass, you asshole," Shindou grumbled, giving him an uneasy look and then glancing around them. "D'ya think anyone would mind if I just left?"

"It's still a bit early. People might wonder," Seiji answered and ran a hand over his lips, hiding a smile. He _had_ wondered. The way Shindou had chased after Akira had been rather obvious. Akira, though, despite his, well, _everything_ was so straight that he was on the negative end on the Kinsey scale. If Akira wasn't, the two of them probably would've been at it like rabbits for years now.

"Letting people know your preferences lay elsewhere might actually work better than anything," Seiji said after a while, and Shindou just _froze_. "Or is that a secret?" the elder Pro asked, eyebrows rising challengingly.

"Well…" Shindou muttered and sighed, looking at the now empty whiskey glass in his hand before setting it down. "Not, I guess. Just not something you spread around," he added.

"This isn't the nineteen hundreds," Seiji snorted.

"Yeah, well, it's not exactly the fucking utopian age of all encompassing acceptance either," Shindou grumbled. "The Go world is full of old fashioned, traditional geezers. I already get enough shit for being, well. Me."

"Only because you have the manners of a jackass," Seiji said. "Nobody cares about what you do in your free time, Shindou. As long as you keep playing as good as you do, no one literally gives a shit. Or what, do you think you're the only gay Go-pro? You're not."

The younger player frowned at that and looked at him. "I'm not?" he asked, looking seriously surprised.

"No, Shindou, you're not," Seiji snorted, reaching his leg out and kicking lightly at the younger man's shin. "Sorry to say, but you're not as unique a snowflake as you think you are. There are these days _thousands_ of professional players. It's pretty much statistically impossible for you to be the only one out there."

Shindou's surprise turned into curiosity. "Heyy," he said slowly, leaning back a bit and staring at him like he had never seen him before. "Are you –"

Seiji rolled his eyes and kicked at the younger man again, this time aiming between his legs, at the edge of the chair he was sitting in, knocking it backwards. Shindou let out a yelp of surprise and almost fell over, having to flail a bit to right himself. While Shindou flailed about, Seiji stood up.

"Come on, you idiot," he said. "I'll buy you a drink."

Shindou stared at him with surprise and suspicion – and then he did a double take. And then the younger man took a slow, thoughtful look, eyes trailing from down up, lingering without a hint of shame, and suddenly Seiji was very aware of all the things that made women throw themselves at Shindou. And the fact that Shindou could probably bench-press him if he had to.

Fuck, the 6-dan was even wearing a tank top. It looked… damn good on him.

"Huh," Shindou murmured, just staring at him. Seiji swallowed and arched his eyebrows, challenging. A grin came to the younger man's face and Shindou stood in a single, somehow powerful motion. They were these days about the same height, Seiji realised.

"Yeah," Shindou said, a new, almost frightening tone in his voice. "Buy me a drink, _Ogata-sensei_."

Fuck, it was going to be an interesting night.


	3. Summer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt by hinekoakahi: Hikaru/Ogata, Summer

Seiji was used to having to share hotel rooms. As it was, this time they had been lucky, and instead of one room split between four to six people, they were offered one room for two people. And since the other two pro's in the event were both women, he had ended up sharing a room with Shindou – which usually wasn't that bad. Shindou was pretty interesting to be around, and always up for a game – and now that he was legal, he definitely didn't shy away from drinking either.

Right now, though, Seiji kind of wished it had been someone else. Because it was hot and miserable and it turned out that the hotel had problems with the AC. And because Shindou, unlike him, was one of those hot blooded people who reacted to summer and heat in those certain ways that left very little tan lines above the waist line. As in, with gratuitous shirtless-ness. And it most definitely hadn't been the first time that summer Shindou had gone without a shirt either, if the slight bronzing of his well toned upper body was anything to go by.

Having said bronzed well-toned body, in all its shirtless glory, across the Goban was bad enough. But Shindou, Seiji was half horrified to find, had a tattoo that ran across his left shoulder, spilling over his left pectoral. A slightly askew portion of a familiar grid shape that sloped down, dotted with white and black. A portion of a game – and if Seiji had been in his right mind, he probably would've tried to figure out the hands played on the kifu-tattoo. But all he could do was stare at it in sort of over heated distraction.

Shindou was sweating and the tattoo was glistening slightly under the florescent light.

"Are you drunk already?" Shindou asked, scratching at his – flat, well defined and also glistening – stomach. "You're not concentrating."

"Mmm," Seiji answered. He wasn't – he'd only had a couple of beers so far, and was nursing a third mostly because the can was still blissfully cold. He took a sip and the beer tasted dull while he tried – and failed – not to wonder what it would taste like, if he ran his tongue over the lines of Shindou's tattoo.

Shindou glanced up from the Goban. "Should we pack this up?" he asked.

"No, its fine," Seiji murmured, glancing down and trying to figure out if his play had any strategy left. It didn't – his distraction had turned it into a mess. Fine. Shaking his head he took a stone and slapped it down where it looked like it might do some good. Then he went back to staring at Shindou's shoulder.

The younger pro gave him a look. "This can't be the first time you've seen a tattoo, man," he said, shaking his head.

"No, it isn't," Seiji agreed, sipping his beer again and leaning back – and then back in because fuck, when had he started getting hard? He carefully shifted so that he could cover himself with the beer can and cleared his throat. "That's an interesting choice for a tattoo, though. Any specific game?"

Shindou looked down. "It's a game I played against friend," he said, and _fuck_ , ran his hand over the tattoo, wiping some of the sweat away, leaving visible lines where he had and hadn't touched. "We never finished playing it. This was the last battle on the board – last hand here," he said, pointing at one black dot just at the base of his collarbone. There was a bead of sweat there and Seiji was suddenly really, really thirsty.

"Must've been an important friend," Seiji said and forcibly looked away before he did something stupid.

"The reason why I ever started playing Go in the first place," Shindou shrugged. "He's gone now."

"My condolences."

"It happened years ago, never mind," Shindou said, shaking his head and placing a stone on the Goban between them. "This game blows."

"Mmm," Seiji agreed and ended up staring at Shindou's hands. Had they always been that big? He could see the veins on the back of Shindou's hand, standing out thanks to the heat. They were gleaming with sweat too. As were his forearms, slightly dusted with hair. Shindou had nice biceps. And then he was staring at the tattoo again.

Shindou looked up at him. "Are you going to play or are you going to visually molest me all evening?" he asked, sounding amused.

"What?" Seiji asked, his eyes snapping, for the first time, up to Shindou's face. The younger man's hair had been pushed back into a sort of wind swept spiky mess. There was a bead of sweat on his temple. His lips were almost ridiculously red.

Shindou was smiling at him, amused, eyes low lidded.

"Sorry," Seiji said, feeling his face heat up. "Maybe I should –"

"Come over here."

"What?"

"Maybe you should come over here," Shindou said slowly and leaned back on his chair, spreading his arms a little, his knees falling slightly apart. _Displaying himself_. Seiji's mouth fell open and he stared at the younger man for a long moment, eyes trailing down, over the expanse of the younger man's mostly bare body. Shindou was only wearing loose shorts and they were riding low, doing nothing to hide the bulge beneath.

" _Fuck_ ," Seiji murmured, his mouth dry.

"We could," Shindou agreed, his eyes as hot as the air around them.

Seiji hesitated maybe a second, possibly two. A moment later, he was sitting astride in the younger man's lap, running his tongue over the grid on Shindou's shoulder. It was hot and salty, the lines slightly raised above the rest of the skin, the black and white dots sensitive judging by the noise Shindou made below him when he grazed his teeth over them.

"Yeah, okay, you do that, then," Shindou murmured, all but ripping Seiji's shirt open while lifting his hip in an indolent roll. Seiji hummed in hungry agreement, pushing lazily back, tracing the entire grid slowly before making his way up the collar bone, the neck, across the underside of Shindou's chin, and to his lips.

Shindou's mouth was hot too, hot and slick and lazy and a moment later, it was on Seiji's neck, on his chest, without shame sucking bruises into his skin. A wave of new heat ran over the elder man as he hung on, surprised and dazed and too turned on for words.

They were going to die of hyperthermia.


	4. Brother

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt by astaraeldarkrahblack: Hikaru misses the way Sai tried to hug him, (sibling relationship)

The labour lasted almost thirteen hours. Hikaru was the one there, holding his mother's hand as she screamed her way through the contractions. It was…more than any son needed to see of their mother, but it wasn't like he'd leave her alone there. With grandpa sick and dad over-seas on a business trip he couldn't put off, there was no one else.

He was thus the first one to hold his new sibling, after his mother passed out with exhaustion and the doctors finished the weighing and measuring and cleaning, The kid, the result of nine months of waiting, was… smaller than he had thought it would be. He – because it was a boy – was tiny, with absolutely minuscule hands and thin tiny little fingers with tiny little finger nails.

The kid was just… so freaking tiny.

"Have your parents decided what to name him yet?" the nurse asked and Hikaru just shook his head – very, very carefully though. He was absolutely terrified of holding the kid wrong, of jostling him or dropping him or anything.

Were all people so small when they were born?

"Is he supposed to be this tiny?" Hikaru asked, looking up helplessly.

The nurse smiled. "He's decent sized, don't worry. There's nothing wrong with your brother," she assured him.

He was left alone for a moment, with just the kid to keep him company. The baby was wiggling in his arms ever so slightly, wringing his tiny little hands and grumbling in high baby tones. One day the kid would be adult, as big as Hikaru, maybe even bigger. He could hardly believe it.

He was a _big_ _brother_ now.

The hell was he supposed to do with that? Sure, it was his parent's job, taking care of the kid, and they had done pretty decent job with him - well. More or less. So it wasn't like he was worried. But he _was_ too, because the kid was his brother, his little brother. All of sudden he had a little brother who was a baby and so tiny and fragile.

The kid whined high and kicked his tiny feet and then settled down again, a displeased look on its red, still wrinkly face, and Hikaru had a moment of internal horror at the thought of messing this up somehow.

And suddenly, very intensely, he missed Sai.

No one had ever been able to see Sai, but he knew Sai would've known what to do. Sai was, used to be, had been… he _was_ the sort of guy who knew everything anybody needed to know about kids. He was a _kid_ person. Hell, Sai had been something of a child himself, at times.

He would've known what to do.

And he would've been able to reassure Hikaru, tell him that this would be okay, he'd do good job. No, Hikaru wouldn't be one of those big brothers who tortured their siblings and made fun of them, no of course not, Hikaru would be the protective, fun sort of big brother. And Hikaru would teach him Go – and maybe the kid wouldn't care for it as much as Hikaru did, but they'd play together anyway and they'd have fun. Maybe one day, the kid would root for him when he tackled some tough opponent. Maybe one day, Hikaru would do the same when the kid did something similar in whatever challenges he faced.

Sai would've been able to tell him that and Hikaru could've believed it.

Right now Hikaru was just scared of how tiny and fragile his little brother seemed. His father was in the US and his mother was knocked out after the labour and he was just scared. He wished someone would hug him, like Sai used to. No one ever hugged him – definitely not like Sai had, all enthusiasm and too much sleeves and full-hearted feeling.

"Hey," he finally whispered to the infant. "I, uh. Welcome, and stuff. Not quite the welcoming committee you were waiting for, but mom's out of it for now, so you gotta take what you can get. I'm your big brother. I'll, uh… try and take care of you."

The infant grumbled again and swung a little fist and Hikaru's heart broke over the tiny movement a little. He smiled, ducking his head down and pressing the gentlest kiss on the kid's forehead.

"I'm going to tell you about Sai, one day. It probably won't make a good bedtime story. Maybe some snippets here and there, stuff we did, Sai and me," he added. "We once stopped a corrupt sales person who tried to sell fake stuff. It was amazing. I think it would make a good story."

He trailed away and bit his lip, staring at the kid. Damn, but he missed Sai. Sai who had never been alive, who had been a ghost. And now there was this tiny little _living person_. Maybe the kid would one day take some of the empty space Sai had left. Maybe not. Probably not all of it anyway. No one could take all of it.

"Hey," he murmured. "I could call you Sai maybe. Or would that be weird? Mom and dad's gonna name you of course, but Sai could be a nickname. Just between you and me. I think Sai would like it. Even if you never liked Go, I think he would like to have someone named after him."

He was crying a little now. The kid didn't seem to mind. Sai probably wouldn't have either.


	5. s.a.i.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt by sparrowsverse: random go challenges that leave Hikaru exasperated

Ten years after Sai passed on, Hikaru takes up the username again. He's never forgotten the password – of course not, it's _fujiwaranosai_ – and it turns out that despite ten years of inactivity, the account is still there, the profile still empty, the chat log still desolate, still sporting all of the game records, all of them still wins.

By that time there has been dozens of other _sai_ s – some of them would-be-copy-cats, some of them honest players who had just started out and had picked unfortunate names for themselves. When Hikaru starts playing, he gets a lot of spam from hard core _sai_ fans – who still, somehow, are sticking around. Most of them follow the lines of "How dare you, you horrible, horrible person, change your name this instant or I will report you." Or "You stupid wanna-be, you're not fooling anybody."

It's surprisingly nice. Sai's been gone for so long by then, but people, those precious few he really affected, still remember, still believe in him – and still defend him. Sometimes very vehemently, to the point of abuse. It all makes him smile.

It's been a long while since he's played anybody – nobody in seriousness, not since Sai left him. He's been watching games though, learning from kifu and from records, spending ten years in a sort of indolent Go-celibacy. Hoping, praying, that if he just didn't play then maybe… maybe Sai would return. He has something of a Go library now – the second bedroom in his house is actually dedicated to all sorts of Go stuff, the walls covered in bookshelves, filled with Tsume-go books, with kifu collections, history books and with ten years worth of Go Weekly subscription.

But Sai hasn't returned, and it's been ten years. And now nostalgia, more than anything, brings him back.

He doesn't play at first, just roaming the site, checking the games. NetGo has changed – now there is a box showing all the people watching the game. The kifu are recorded and can be viewed by anybody. There are tournaments with actual prizes, there are chats that run alongside the games, there are lessons, there are actually NetGo professionals who moderate the site, play teaching games, offer tips. There is an information library even. It's all old and new and fascinating. Sai would've loved all of it.

They still haven't managed to remove the pop up challenges, and though Hikaru doesn't get quite as many of them as Sai used to, someone occasionally challenges him. Probably to "put him in his place" like so many of the private messages say they should do. He ignores them for now – that, at least is easier, since the challenge pop ups can be put into a new window, god bless the advancements in internet browsers since 2001.

There's a forum on the NetGo site, solely dedicated to Sai's games. It's called the Saint of NetGo, and every single game Sai had played online has its own thread, all over four hundred of them. The most popular thread is _< sai vs. touya kouyo> _with thousands of messages. Hikaru spends several whole days, reading the analysis people have written of the game.

No one's caught the potential second path the game could've taken, so he begins writing it down in a document – his analysis of the game, with some of Sai's own annotations added in, as few as they had been before Sai had just vanished.

After about a month spent watching and re-familiarising himself with the site, Hikaru accepts his first challenge, and trounces a player named _vonne_ in ten minutes flat. His style is different from Sai's, he's painfully aware of that, and to him it screams out of every move he had taken during the four minute game. But a win is a win.

He gets another challenge, someone named _50ng_. The game lasts eight minutes, before Hikaru kills the cluster _50ng_ tried to make, and his opponent forfeits. The third challenge is from so _fian22_ and it lasts almost seven minutes before forfeit.

Tentatively, the threat spam he got dies down, and more people start watching his games. At first, it's one or two – mostly people he's beaten, with _vonne_ and _50ng_ being his biggest fans. Then it's five, ten. By the time the day ends, he had twenty viewers, talking rapidly in the side chat, analysing every move, wondering, "is it _him_?" while he trounced opponent after opponent, getting himself familiar with the flow of playing again.

When he logs in the next day, four hundred people turn up to watch his first game. He beats his first low level opponents easily, accepting every first challenge he gets indiscriminately. The people of NetGo start organising around then, start strategising who challenges him – the better, more advanced players start spamming the challenge buttons when ever Hikaru wins and he begins playing tougher opponents. Ten minute games turn into twenty minute or half an hour games and Hikaru starts feeling a little better, starts having fun with it.

"It's good to have you back," someone tells him after a game, and Hikaru very nearly stops playing again at that. But that wouldn't be the point, now would it?

Two weeks later, NetGo is in consensus. _sai_ , the Saint of NetGo, has returned. The forums are overflowing with new analysis, and people wonder. The disparity of ability is noted – Hikaru has a lot of Sai in his Go, but he has a lot of other things too, it's different. It's eventually chalked up to "maybe he hasn't been playing for the last ten years." Which, fair enough, he hadn't been. His, _sai_ 's return is dubbed "his second re-genesis" and people sit back and watch, expecting him to do what Sai had done, come in with old, weird Go, and rapidly progress to stellar skill.

Hikaru doesn't know about stellar, but he does make progress. The bookiness of his Go eventually fades, he re-learns the flow of it. He gets better. People think he is the original _sai_ – _sai_ -reborn even – and that's good.

He _never_ loses.

Two months pass, and NetGo falls silent. Hikaru logs in and doesn't get any challenges for an hour. Confused, he sits behind his computer, watching a couple of games and not receiving a _single_ challenge. He's starting to wonder if there's a glitch and if he should contact the admins – or does he have to start challenging people himself now?

Then it happens.

> [touya kouyou challenges you!]  
>  [Komi: 5.5]  
>  [Allotted time: 03:00:00]  
>  [Byoyomi: 00:00:60]  
>  [Nigiri: Random]  
>  [Accept / Decline]

Hikaru stares at the window for a long moment before bowing his head. "This is it," he murmurs in the privacy of his house, glancing towards the room where all the Go stuff is: the books, the Goban he had only played on against himself for ten years. Sulking at first, and then mourning, and eventually, _finally_ , preparing.

For this moment.

"Let's go, _sai_. Time for you to return to the path to the Hand of God."


	6. Dead Men Don't Play Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt by ladyenterprize: Dead men don’t play go

"So, is it haunted?" the harassed looked customer asked, motioning at the bloodstained Goban between them.

Hikaru scratched his cheek thoughtfully. The Goban was most definitely spiritually active – probably haunted, judging by the aura of it. It was also, judging by the level of sheer _gloom_ emanating from it, haunted by a spirit that that was deeply sad with its life – or, well, lack thereof. He was used to things that were haunted by vengeful remnants, or angry, or generally evil – insane people left behind insanely powerful ghosts. This one was just… sad. Deeply, miserably sad.

And also _freaking powerful_. The age of the thing – not the Goban, but the spirit in it? It had been a while since he had felt one like it. It had to be at least five hundred years old, probably older. An old, powerful spirit – that was driven by sadness, rather than vengeance? That didn't happen very often. Scratch that, it didn't happen at all. Sad ones, they just faded away within a few decades, because sad sort of regret usually wasn't a strong enough motivation to stick around. Not like anger or violence or hate – sadness wore out. Usually.

"Tell you what," he said. "How about I take this thing off your hands? How much did you pay for it?" he asked, considering it. He was too curious about what motivated the spirit – he wanted to meet it. It would be easiest done, if he was the one who owned the Goban.

"A hundred and twenty thousand," the customer said and Hikaru blanched a little.

"A hundred and twenty thousand. As in yen?" he asked, incredulous.

"It was actually pretty darn cheap," the man answered, defensively. "I had it verified by an expert – the Goban is made from Hon Kaya. If the seller had known, they'd have slapped a five hundred thousand tag on it!"

"Really?" Hikaru asked, looking at it.

"Yeah, also it's obviously at least a hundred years old. That'd have been at least another hundred thousand, if it hadn't doubled the price," the customer said and sighed. "And then it turns out it's haunted…"

Hikaru looked down at the thing, biting his thumb nail. He couldn't afford to buy something that cost a hundred thousand – never mind something more expensive than that. Onmyoji, especially one of his modern sort, didn't get paid _that_ well.

The customer let out a frustrated noise. "Can't you just remove the spirit and be done with it?"

"Sorry, I'm not in this business to murder people," Hikaru answered and looked at the man. "I don't suppose you could leave this in my care for, say, about a week? I wanted to buy it to have time to investigate it further, connect with the spirit, have a chat and all that. I might be able to do that in a week, maybe even move the spirit to another container, if they still want to stick around."

"And if you can't?" the man asked.

Hikaru frowned. "If I can't, then I'll see what I can do about exorcism," he answered. "I _can_ remove a spirit. I can even destroy it. I just prefer not to."

"Fine," the customer said, sighing. "You'll have your week. But I want the Goban unpossessed when I get it back."

The first day Hikaru didn't do anything to the Goban, letting it sit in his living room, and soak in the other spiritually rich artefacts around the apartment. The poor spirit was roiling about in confusion at first, but eventually settled down into a sort of nervous attention, just at the surface, but not daring to come out.

The second day, Hikaru got a set of stones, and settled the bowls atop the Goban – these ones he had bought, fair and square. It had taken some time to find a good set, proper slate and sea shell with the bowls made from Kaya, just like the Goban.

The third day he added cushions on each side of the Goban and then took a seat on one of them, legs comfortably crossed. Taking the bowls, he settled them both at his side and then placed a black stone right in the middle of the Goban, tapping it lightly against the old wood.

"Feel like coming out now?" he asked, and placed another stone down. "I know you're in there. You might as well talk with me. I promise, I'm a better conversationalist than the germs inside that wood grain are."

It took nine stones arranged before the ghost finally dared to come out, in a nervous rush of light and time and memories and the sort of magic they hadn't practiced in a thousand years. Hikaru's eyebrows shot up at the sight of the spirit's clothing – well. That explained it.

People had been a bit more magically oriented around the Heian era.

"You… can see me?" the spirit asked.

"Yep," Hikaru said, resting his elbows on his knees. "I'm Onmyoji. They had my sort in your time too, right?"

"Oh!" the spirit said and then quickly bowed down, down, his forehead touching the floor. "Please, my lord, don't banish me. I still have so many things I wish to see and do!"

"Calm down, I'm not that sort of Onmyoji," Hikaru answered, waving at the man. "Up. Up, get up. We got stuff to talk about and I'd rather do it face to face."

The spirit, Fujiwara no Sai, was kind of skittish and nervous as Hikaru questioned him about his reason of existence, why and how he had died, and why he had stuck around. Fujiwara, it turned out, had been ridiculously powerful in life too – only way he could've gone from a _river_ into existence bound to an object was if he had the will power to make it happen. And a lot of spirits didn't – they just floated around in the places where they died, if they were lucky enough to die in magical places. Fujiwara hadn't – but he was still around. And had been, for a thousand years, passing from Goban to Goban as his containers grew old, wore out, or were destroyed.

After hearing it all and making his decision, Hikaru took a moment to explain the situation to him. Fujiwara's already nervous face fell and he bowed his head. "So this is the end for me?"

"Could be, if you wanted it to be. I can help you on, if that's what floats your boat," Hikaru answered. "Or I can bind you to something else. You're damn lucky this thing was brought to me, by the way. Anyone else and you'd be screwed."

"Screwed?" The spirit asked, utterly baffled, and Hikaru grinned before explaining what the modern era was like for ghosts. Easier, because not many people believed in magic anymore and so they didn't believe in ghosts either and thus weren't quite so likely to call for an exorcism at the drop of the hat like people used to. And harder, because thanks to the fact that so few people believed in magic, there was nowadays very little magic to go around.

"You've been fortunate, to have been able to stick around so long," Hikaru added. "But you must be running out of juice by now."

"Juice?"

"Magic, spiritual essence, chakra, chi, whatever. The supernatural energy," Hikaru waved. "The stuff ghosts _eat_ so that they can keep on existing. I'm guessing this was either made or enchanted or used by someone strong in magic?" he asked, tapping the Goban between them. "Stuff like this is rare these days."

"I see?" the spirit answered, frowning. "So… if this Goban had been destroyed somehow… I might have not found another."

"It would've been pretty damn hard. And even if you had found one, it probably wouldn't have been anywhere near enough to support you magically. This is the era where ghosts come to _die_ ," Hikaru said compassionately.

"I don't seem to be in danger of… dying here," Sai commented, looking around.

"Well, obviously not. You're in the house of an Onmyoji," Hikaru said. "Which is pretty much the only place in this era where you could survive. Unless you decided to haunt an old temple or whatever. From where we come to my offer."

He took the Goke and set them atop the Goban, resting his hand on them. "I can bind you to one of these – sorry, couldn't get a Goban, they're a bit too expensive for me. Or if you don't like the idea of being bound to the bowls, you can hang around me for a while and leech off my magic, that's fine too. Either way, you need to leave the Goban."

Fujiwara frowned. "Would that be safe? For you as well as myself?"

"For me it would be fine – I've had ghosts leech off of me before, it's not too bad. For you it would obviously mean being bound to me, if you chose that. You'd have to go where I go," Hikaru shrugged.

"If… if I went with you, could I…" Fujiwara trailed away and frowned, reaching one long sleeved hand to try and touch the Goban between them. His fingers went through it. "Could I play?"

"Go?" Hikaru asked and lean back. "I guess we could. Mind you, I'm a working Onmyoji, so I don't always have the time, but occasionally… sure."

Fujiwara hesitated and then looked at him. "I would… like that. If it isn't a bother, I would like that very much."

Hikaru nodded and grinned, standing up. "Alright then," he said. "Let's get cracking then."


	7. Play

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt by elynight: MMORPG

It took Sai almost a year to figure out that what he was experiencing wasn't actually real. He wasn't… quite sure what it was, but it was artificial, somehow. It was a little like living inside a painting, in a city made of paper and ink. Everything looked like it was real, like it was there – but it was all brushstrokes on a thin surface and the depth wasn't there. Everything was hollow.

Except some of the people. Not all of them – a lot of them were as hollow as the world, repeating patterns, speaking the same things over and over. But some, those who never stayed around for long, those, he had come to slowly realise, were real. They flitted past on their quests and adventures, visiting the shops and dashing off again, displaying flashy outfits in the central square, sometimes fighting each other… they were real, and more aware of the unreality of their surroundings than he was.

They called it a _game_. A virtual reality simulation. Something like that. Sai wasn't entirely sure what _that_ was actually, but he went with it, as much as he could. He wasn't like the world, but he wasn't like the real people either, not really. While he wasn't bound into patterns and bits of dialogue, he was bound to the city, and when the real people left, he was forced to stay.

They called him an npc. It had taken him a long while to learn that it meant Non Playable Character. He supposed he was. Sadly, it meant that the _real_ people ignored him mostly and didn't talk to him – he tried at first to strike up conversation, excited to be able to do so, but all that had garnered him was a reputation as "that annoying bug npc that harasses people". Since he wasn't part of any quests and had no quests of his own to give… he was worthless.

So, he sat back and watched the people flash by. Nobody ever stayed – they came and then they were gone again and few did he see more than once. It was exhausting and disheartening and in the end, he gave up trying to make contact at all, keeping to the shade of an eternally blooming cherry tree, from where he could see the people as they went, without bothering anybody.

He wasn't expecting Hikaru, not at all. Hikaru probably hadn't been expecting him either, when he crashed right through the branches of the cherry tree and very nearly straight into Sai's lap.

"Okay, so, gliders have a time limit," was the first thing Hikaru said as he lay there, half across Sai, with a bleeding head wound and cherry petals sticking to his hair. "Good to know."

"Um," Sai answered, a little uncertain. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, sorry about that," the real person smiled and sat up, downing a _potion_ to erase the injuries as if they had never existed. "I just bought a glider off the AH and I was testing it and it turns out you can't fly with it forever. Who knew, right?" he asked, grinning and then glanced around. "You waiting on somebody?"

"No, I'm… I'm not, really," Sai answered, uneasy. It had been a while since anyone had talked to him. Usually it was to ask if he had quests or if he was part of a quest line, or if he traded or played games, or something like that. People didn't… talk to him.

"Well, okay then," the other said. "Mind if I sit here for a moment?" he asked and flicked his hand across the air, bringing into existence a faintly blue, translucent box. "I spent all my stamina. I… can't stand."

"I don't mind it, no," Sai said slowly. "Um… my name is Sai. And you are…?"

Hikaru was an _assassin_ , and fit the part poorly. He had the signature dual blades at each side of his hips, but his armour was yellow and orange and black, entirely unsubtle. He hadn't been _playing_ the game for a long while and was still low level – according to himself. "Still figuring this stuff out," he admitted. "How about you?"

Sai just looked back, helplessly shaking his head. He wasn't a… a _player_. He didn't have a class, he didn't have abilities, he had no strength or stamina or any sort of flying abilities. "Two years, I think?" he answered finally. It was hard to tell the time, there were no calendars here. The city had what people called a day-night cycle, and for a while Sai had counted the days but…

"You must be such a high level player then." Hikaru said, looking interesting. "Can I see your stats?"

"Sorry," Sai answered, awkward.

"Ah well, never mind," Hikaru said, waving a hand and turning to the translucent box, looking a little off put.

Sai hesitated, swallowed, and then steeled himself. "Truth be told, I'm not a player," he said. "I'm not an npc either. I'm just here," he said.

"What?" Hikaru asked, turning to him. "What does that mean?"

Sai told him. He had never done that before – never really gotten the opportunity. But he had been here for so long, and Hikaru was the first one who had talked to him like he was a _person_. He missed talking with people, missed being considered a human being, he just… _missed_ being real. And so he spilled out the whole sordid tale, all thousand years of it, from life to death and to this… non-existence.

"I don't know how I ended up here, though," Sai murmured. "I was in Torajiro's Goban the last I remember, and then… then I was here. Like this. And have been since."

"Huh," was Hikaru's not so eloquent answer. For a long while he just stared at Sai and Sai was absolutely certain any moment now Hikaru would just stand up and walk away – but his stamina was still low, still recovering.

"Okay," Hikaru said finally, slowly. "Run that by me again, will ya?"

"Weren't you listening?" Sai asked.

"I was. But the thing with npcs is that when they go off in story telling mode, they always say everything exactly the same way and every repeat is identical," Hikaru said, pointing a finger at him. "So run the whole story by me again. Differently."

Sai had to tell the story _four times_ before Hikaru was satisfied that he was capable of not just very human like variation – but also human like mistakes, as during the fourth retelling Sai grew a little irritated and then got the order of events wrong, a fact which Hikaru noted with clear satisfaction.

"Okay, so. Ghost in a VR game. Wonderful," Hikaru said, nodding. "Or, you know, not. My condolences and everything. But, uh… Now what?"

"I don't know," Sai answered, sighing and looking away. "I suppose I am to remain here, as I have. Perhaps for forever."

"That sucks," Hikaru said sympathetically. "And you can't even leave the city. What would you do if you could?"

"Play Go?" Sai more asked than stated. "It's all I want, but… I suppose it is impossible to play a game, inside a game."

"Hah! On the contrary, my ghostly friend," Hikaru said, grinning, and opened another illusionary box. He flicking his finger at it and pressed a button, and then, suddenly…

There was a Goban sitting between them.

"I got the board-gaming ad-on," Hikaru explained while Sai stared at the miraculous Goban in shock. "So I've got pretty much all of them. Go, Shogi, Checkers, Chess, you name it –"

That was as far as he got before Sai, overjoyed, grabbed him into a tearful, jubilant hug.


	8. Stumbling Blocks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt by blacknosugarh: Hikaru- Oh God, not again!

After they had been together about a year, Sai figured out how to move objects. It was a slow, awkward process and took a great deal of effort, but it was more than he had ever been able to do before, so he was overjoyed. At first he of course wanted to play Go, to move the stones by himself – Hikaru got annoyed at it pretty quickly, since it took Sai so much time to make his moves. But it was still great, it was incredible, it was magnificent! He could affect the real world.

After Go, came the magazines. He could now turn the pages by himself, which meant he no longer needed Hikaru to turn the pages when he wanted to read Go Weekly. He used the night time, when Hikaru was asleep, to do this – thankfully, Hikaru slept with a night light, so it was easy enough to read even during the night.

Then came the computer. Hikaru had been bemoaning about getting a computer of his own for a while now, and for that Christmas, his parents relented. A not quite brand new but still serviceable laptop computer found its home on Hikaru's desk – and on the desktop of said laptop, NetGo got its own thumbnail.

"Hey, now you can play without me having to bother!" Hikaru said, and spend a good week or so teaching Sai how to use the mouse and how to click the right things. It was still slow, and sometimes the laptop screen flickered if Sai got too close to it, but he could play other people, by himself, without Hikaru needing to place the stones for him!

The laptop was, thus, on pretty much around the clock, and Sai spend most of the night time playing online, his game records shooting up from dozens to hundreds in no time at all.

Eventually, though… He found himself a little bored.

As nice as it was to be able to play, the opponents he faced on NetGo weren't quite as impressive as he would've liked – as it was, most of the time he ended up playing handicapped teaching games. It was all good fun, he had many learning experiences himself, he grew stronger but… eventually the opponents on NetGo started loosing their shine.

With his new ability to move and affect things, he wasn't quite satisfied by just sitting around and doing nothing all night, though. At first he reread the Go Weekly magazines. Eventually, he had them all pretty much memorised, and moved onto Hikaru's school books – mathematics, it turned, was quite a bit more complicated than he remembered it to be. After that, he tried his hand at Hikaru's manga collection but… well, it wasn't quite his thing.

Somewhere along the way, he started to clean Hikaru's room. At first it was just the messes he himself made – when he spread the papers out, he eventually also collected them back into a neat pile. It was only polite, after all. But eventually he started straightening up the rest of it too. He folded the clothing Hikaru left in a pile on the floor, he re-arranged the shelves, he eventually went through Hikaru's entire wardrobe and folded everything neatly.

Hikaru, when he woke up, just shook his head at him in incomprehension. Sai shrugged, "I was bored," he said, and they left it at that.

He kept at it, from then on, neatening stuff a bit while Hikaru slept. That, though, eventually stopped keeping his interest too – one could only clean so much before everything was too clean to be cleaned further, after all. Which left him, once more, bored.

And that was when he found the playing cards. It was, according to Hikaru, just a standard deck of playing cards, nothing surprising about it. For Sai, it was something new.

At first he fiddled with the cards without any goal. Then he did something he had see Hikaru do, and started fitting two cards into a little tent shape. Then another beside it. It took time and effort to get it right – he failed many times and the stacks fell – but he was bored enough to be determined, until he had a neat little row of card tents. Then he had a second layer, and a third.

Hikaru, upon waking up, walked right into it. "What?" he asked, confused at the scattered cards at his feet. Then he looked at Sai, who was pouting at the destruction of his carefully made structure. "Bored again?"

"I'll pick them up," Sai promised, and did so while Hikaru was in the shower. Well, he thought. It had been pretty interesting seeing it being destroyed, as well a being built.

The next night, he managed to make a full triangle of stacked up little card tents. Then he began experimenting, making other sorts of structures, circular towers and pillars. Some of them fell, but the longer he worked at it, the better he got – and the higher and more complicated the structures got. He didn't play with the cards all the time, of course not – no, mostly he played Go on the computer. But when ever he got bored of that, as rare as it was…

Hikaru kept stumbling into them when he woke up, falling over a couple of times, cursing and muttering. "Again, Sai? Really?"

Seeing Hikaru's reaction was definitely the best part.


	9. Listen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt by your-own-personal-jesus: Hikaru no Go, Hikaru is deaf

Sai sat patiently in front of Hikaru, as the boy slowly moved his hands in front of him. There was a decisive elegance to the way Hikaru moved his hands, some motions fluid, others sharp and strong. Some of them were already familiar – like the finger gestures that made SA-I and HI-KA-RU – but most of it was new and strange.

Hikaru repeated the motion he was making a few times, and then reached for a pen and paper and wrote it down. _shall / we / play / go /?_ And then he went through the motions again, one sign at a time.

Sai nodded and pushed the sleeves of his kariginu as far up as they would go – the sleeves weren't very good with this sort of thing. Slowly, he made the first sign under Hikaru's watchful eyes – it took him several times before Hikaru nodded. Then the next one, until it was formed to Hikaru's satisfaction, and then the next. Then, the whole thing, once, twice, a good ten times in total, before Hikaru smiled and nodded that he had gotten it.

Grinning, Sai shifted his sleeves back and rapidly signed. SHALL WE PLAY GO?

Hikaru grinned back and signed the more familiar YES, before shifting to get the Goban from the corner of the room.

Of all the many, many setbacks there were in the life of a ghost, a deaf companion wasn't one Sai had prepared for. He was lucky that mouthing was an important part of JSL and Hikaru was, thanks to it, gifted in reading lips. Otherwise they wouldn't have been able to communicate much, aside from Hikaru writing to him.

They could've maybe managed with that, if it was just them. Sai could talk, Hikaru could write, and they could communicate. But…

Most of Hikaru's interactions were done in JSL, though. His family, the majority of his friends, and more or less everyone in the specialised school he went to interacted through JSL, and Sai was hopelessly confused by the rapid hand gestures going all around. While understanding what people were saying wasn't precisely important in their strange… bond, it was frustrating, maddening even, to be unable to understand. And while Hikaru could read lips, it sometimes took several repetitions before he caught certain words, the lip movements being so similar to something else. The sign language was more understandable to the boy.

And so, Sai was learning JSL while Hikaru was learning Go. It wasn't precisely a fair arrangement, but Hikaru didn't seem to mind. If anything, he enjoyed the company.

"Have you always been deaf?" Sai had asked Hikaru earlier on, before they had started the lessons. He had known people who were born deaf and people who had had an accident and had ended up deaf that way, and he wasn't sure which Hikaru was.

 _I always had bad hearing, but I could still hear when I was younger. my hearing started to go completely when I was nine,_ Hikaru had written back. _I had a reoccurring disease called otitis media when I was little. it's an ear thing, an inflammation that messes stuff up in the ear – usually curable. but I had a lot of episodes and ear infections when I was little and it damaged the bones._

Otitis media meant very little to Sai but he nodded none the less. "Can you hear at all?" Sai asked, curiously.

 _little bit – better in my left ear than right. But it has to be really loud – and I can't hear high pitched sounds, even if they're really loud,_ Hikaru shrugged and that was that.

Sai figured that Hikaru had probably been in a normal school before, and been a normal child – not that there was anything abnormal about Hikaru. But for a while there, it must've looked like he could live a normal life – perhaps with one of those ear thingies Sai had seen some of the other kids wearing in Hikaru's school. But then the condition had worsened, Hikaru had been forced to switch schools to go to one that’s more equipped to handle the hearing impaired… and he had probably lost a majority of his friends while at it.

And now, even the company of a ghost was a welcome thing.

Smiling gently, Sai took out his fan and began silently pointing out his moves on the Goban for Hikaru to place. It was a good thing that Go required very little speaking – after game discussions aside. Hikaru was still very raw and clumsy with his Go, but he was learning its language quicker than Sai was learning JSL, that was for certain. Perhaps, in a little while, they'd be able to communicate without words, or writing, or signs. Perhaps the stones would soon speak for them.

It would be worth a listen, definitely.


	10. Traditional Play

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt by uvecheri: Hmmm… Hikaru no Go, prompt: onnagata

Hikaru had a tradition for Children's Day. It went roughly along the lines of: 1, visit temples; 2, buy whatever was newest about Honinbo Shusaku; 3, buy a new fan; 4, recreate _that game_ just in case a certain _idiot_ might show up to finish playing it; and 5, get drunk when no one showed up.

He was half way into step number five when Akira found him at his favourite bar.

"Not again," his old – old, god how long had they been up to this? Fifteen, twenty years? – rival sighed at the sight of him. "Every year. Doesn't it ever get old, Shindou?"

"Nope," Hikaru grumbled and lifted his glass to drain it before Akira could try and swipe it from his hand. His rival wrestled it from him anyway. "Hey, I paid for that!"

"Yeah, and you'll keep paying for it for the rest of your life if you don't stop," Akira grumbled and pushed the glass away, waving goodbye to the bartender before grabbing Hikaru by the elbow. "You're not a little brat anymore, Shindou. You're thirty five. Don't you think it's time you act like it?"

"I don't know. Don't you think it's time you get a new haircut?" Hikaru asked him, but allowed the other man to drag him away from the alcohol. He hadn't been having that much fun anyway.

"Seriously though, Shindou, why do you keep doing this?" Akira sighed. "Every year. Even if you have a game the following day, you do this. I think it's gotten to the point where they don't even bother trying to arrange a match for you on the sixth."

Hikaru grunted and shoved a bit at the other man to get him to release him, and stood on his own power. "It's nothing," he muttered and tugged at his suit jacket – these days he wore a suit more often than not, damn it all. But then, he was a professional. And a title holder. Occasionally.

"Am I a title holder?" Hikaru asked as he followed his rival out.

"Sadly yes, Shindou Honinbo, you are," Akira said, rolling his eyes so hard Hikaru could almost hear it. "And this is not the proper mode of conduct for a title holder."

"Tell that to Ogata," Hikaru snorted and almost stumbled. "Where are we going?"

"I was going to take you home to sober up, but I'm feeling particularly kind today, so I thought we'd go somewhere loud and obnoxious," Akira said, deadpan.

"Are you going to take me to a club?" Hikaru asked, wide eyed "Because that sounds _awesome_!"

"No, I'm actually taking you home, you lout. Grow up."

"Never," Hikaru said, the thought of loud and obnoxious now rooted in his mind. "We could go someplace loud and obnoxious though. It could be fun!"

"No, we will not," Akira said. "I'm taking you home and then I'm forgetting that this night ever happened.

Ten minutes of fighting and one bet later, they entered the first loud and obnoxious looking place they came across. It turned out to not be a bar or even a club, despite how the front looked, but was instead some sort of theatre club, where customers sat around round tables on comfy chairs, looking up to the stage where some classical type of play was being performed.

"No way, let's find another place," Hikaru murmured to Akira and made to exit the club as quickly as possible.

Akira answered through gritted teeth. "No, it's either this or nothing, because I am not going through this with you again. Just find a place to sit and pipe down."

Hikaru hesitated, but seeing that they served drinks in the club, he gave in. Well, it wasn't _precisely_ worse than his usual place. Just, a lot more traditional-theatre-ey. With a sigh, he waved at Akira to sit down and headed for the bar to get something to ease the pain of _traditional-theatre_.

Akira, of course, seemed right at home in the place – he even seemed to pay attention to the pompous acting and ridiculous drama. Hikaru nursed his drink sullenly and tried to figure out what the play was about. Some noble killing some other noble, and now everyone was about to declare war?

Then a lady in a traditional kimono and make up more fit for a geisha walked onto the stage, opened her painted lips – and spoke in what was _definitely_ a male voice.

"Oh god," Hikaru murmured, bowing his head over his drink and tried not to giggle. It was a _kabuki_ theatre. A kabuki-theatre-club! Who woulda thunk it?

The male acting female – onnagata – stumbled with his lines and Hikaru glanced up to see him staring at the audience. There was an awkward silence before the onnagata's fellow actor thumped him on the kimono hem with his katana sheath, and the onnagata got back to acting, his voice quivering over the first few syllables before his voice strengthened again. His eyes though, were more on the audience, than on the other actors.

"Poor man," Akira commented quietly. "Stumbling over his lines like that."

For some reason that made Hikaru giggle. It was somehow such a snotty posh thing Akira _would_ say. Hikaru could almost hear him going tsk tsk tsk in his mind. It was hilarious.

The play took about half an hour to finish and in that time Hikaru replenished his drink once before Akira put his foot down – which he did by filching Hikaru's wallet, the bastard. Hikaru silently seethed through the rest of the play, until Akira announced they could leave.

"To find another club?" Hikaru asked hopefully.

"To go _home_ you idiot," his rival answered. "Alright, you lout, get up. Let's get you home."

Grumbling, Hikaru allowed himself to be prodded and pushed until they were out of the club. The air was colder now, the sky darker, and Hikaru was feeling decisively less drunk than he would've liked to be. But maybe it was past midnight, and it wasn't the fifth anymore, so maybe it was okay?

"What's the time?" he asked, flailing a hand at Akira who, like the asshole he was, had a Rolex somewhere. Probably.

"Almost midnight. High time for you to pass out, really," Akira said. "Come on –"

"Wait! Wait, no, wait!" A voice called behind them, making them turn. Hikaru did a double take at the sight of the still kimono-clad onnagata who was, on lacquered geta, running after them. "Wait," the man called, breathless, holding the hems of his kimono with one hand. "I know you, I know I know you!"

"What?" Hikaru asked and turned to look at Akira. "What _have_ you been doing?"

"What are you looking at me for?" Akira asked – just as the onnagata reached them, and then grabbed a hold of one of them. Hikaru, to be specific. The lapels of Hikaru's rather rumpled suit jacket, to be extra specific.

"Hey now," he complained and then blinked at the painted face right in front of his, the blue eyes, the long black blue hair slipping out of the hold of the kanzashi in his hair. The man was surprisingly tall and there was something about his eyes… "Hey," Hikaru said, quieter.

"Hi," the onnagata answered, almost breathless. "I know you," he said. "Do you know me?"

Hikaru frowned at the man's face before flailing a hand at Akira and grabbing the handkerchief the man always tucked into his front chest pocket, the freak. Ignoring Akira's indignant yelp, he used it to wipe some of the makeup away, to reveal the real skin.

He was young, maybe twenty. His cheek bones were high, his skin smooth and pale and his lips had a, somehow, naturally slightly purple tint to them. And Hikaru knew him.

"Hey," Hikaru said again. "I've looked for you everywhere. Where have _you_ been?"

Whether Sai really knew him, whether he remembered, was hard to say. But judging by the way he threw himself at Hikaru, what he did know was just about enough.


	11. Children's Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unbetaed

Hikaru startled up from his half slumped position as a sudden, piercing howl tore through his room. Still tired and mostly asleep after the long event and early morning in the Go Seminar, he almost asked why someone would bring their kid to a Go event. Except he was at home now, in his room, and the wailing was coming from across the Goban.

"Sai, what the hell?" Hikaru grunted, running a hand over the face. "I'm dead tired, I don't have the energy for -"

He stopped and stared. There was no sign of Sai. Instead there was a small bundle of white, silken cloth sitting on the floor across the Goban,  squirming about restlessly and wailing like a fire alarm. Even through the murky fog of exhaustion Hikaru could identify it instantly.

For a moment he just stared before leaning in a little to take a closer look. The baby wrung out his fists and the cloth shifted and Hikaru could see his red little fade, scrunched up in absolute discontent. "What – wait, since when -" Hikaru asked and got a high pitched shriek in answer. "Okay this isn't funny – Sai -"

He looked around but there was no sign of Sai anywhere, not so much as a sliver of overly fancy cloth. Except for the cloth around the child who, actually, looked a lot like Sai's kariginu.

"Okay,  Sai, this isn't funny," Hikaru said – because no way would've he missed someone coming in and planting a baby in front of him – even he wasn't that dense. "Sai, stop this right now – it's being noisy and I'm tired and -"

And the baby just wailed harder, his face red with effort. Grimacing Hikaru reached out to touch, just to convince himself that it wasn't actually there, except…

First his fingers met the rich silk the kid was wrapped in – then the warm, solid form of the baby itself. The baby let out a small hiccup and paused for a moment  – and then kept on crying, wringing his fists and kicking feebly with his feet and wailing.

For a moment Hikaru just froze because Sai wasn't solid, he wasn't warm, he couldn't really hit Hikaru when he swung his hands – but this baby could. Hikaru could feel him – could hear him drawing breaths for each cry.

"Oh, damnit – baby -" Hikaru muttered nonsensically because suddenly it dawned in him that it was an actual baby wailing in actual discomfort and he was just sitting there like lump, not doing anything. Awkward and hesitant,  he crawled around the Goban and first tried to distract the baby from what was bothering him – and when that didn't work, he tried to pick him up. That wasn't at all easy though – at first the baby shrieked at him and then squirmed in his arms and by the time he figured that the baby needed his head supported, the kid was hiccupping in exhausted misery.

"There there," Hikaru babbled, mostly in panic, once he had the baby, silk rope and all, bundled up against his chest. "Shh shh there there, it's alright,  no need to cry – it's children's day, you know, it's literally your day, you don't need to cry…"

Wildly he looked around for Sai for any guidance – or even just a companion to panic with him – but there was no sign of him anywhere. First time in two and half years, Sai just wasn't there. "What a freaking time to bail on me, Sai," Hikaru snapped – but softly, because of the baby. "Where did you even come from, you little…"

The baby whimpered and looked up at him with very familiar and very confused deep blue eyes.

 

* * *

 

 

Hikaru mother found him and baby Sai in the living room,  the one panicking internally,  the other finally asleep after much confusion and crying. She dropped the groceries all over the floor and gasped so loud that Hikaru winced.

"I just got him to fall asleep," he said tiredly,  looking down at Sai's little, peaceful face. Then he looked up at his horrified mother.  "Mom. Help?"

What followed were three of the most stressful days of Hikaru's life as he first was accused and tested and then questioned and interrogated about the origins of the baby he could do nothing to explain.

It turned out the baby had his genes – he read as Sai's dad in the tests. As for Sai's mom, well, God only knew. Hikaru could offer no explanation one way or the other and in the end said nothing, just sat there in shock until it was decided that Sai's mom was "unknown".

He was pretty sure they brought in Akari to be questioned though – and they called the Go Association too, though he had no idea who they talked to or about what.  Judging by the questions though, the police thought that Sai's mom was probably older than Hikaru and the disapproval was heavy and pointed and Hikaru could say nothing to diffuse it.

When they asked him why he wanted to do, all Hikaru could do was think about the baby's familiar deep blue eyes and ask "Can I keep Sai?"

It turned out as Sai's biological father, he could.

 

* * *

 

"There will be changes, of course," his mother babbled nervously as Hikaru cradled Sai in his arms on their way home. "We still have some of your baby things but we need to buy some essentials. A crib first of all – no, we need food and nappies and clothes and – oh, Hikaru – what are we going to do?"

"I'll quit school," Hikaru said. "I'll quit Go, I'll -"

"You'll do no such thing," Mitsuko snapped. "You'll finish school with some measure of dignity. I'm home all day anyway – I can look after little Sai while you go to school. As for Go…" She hesitated. "Well. Its a job," she said slowly. "And you are going to need the income. A child is a… lot to support, Hikaru."

Hikaru winced,  looking down on Sai. Whom he now had to support. He was just fifteen,  barely more than a kid himself, and he had a kid of his own to support, a baby, a helpless defenceless baby – and it was Sai of all people and…

"Hikaru," Mitsuko said and clasped him by the shoulder as Hikaru gasped wetly for breath. "It will be alright, your father and I will be here for you, both of you. It won't be easy,  but the world isn't ending.  Alright? Just take a deep breath."

Hikaru sniffed and nodded. God he couldn't even imagine what the Go Association thought about all of this. What would Waya and the others think? What would Toya think?!

"Well," he mumbled to sleeping Sai. "I guess… I guess I'll figure this out. Don't have much choice, do I?"

Sai let out a quiet little sigh in his sleep and Hikaru panicked a little more.


	12. Traditionally Haunted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Actual Creepy Child Hikaru

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unbetaed  
> Very-Bad-Sai kinda implied  
> Also warning for mind control, I guess.

The first time Akira met him, he didn't think of much of how he looked. He'd gone through some sleepless nights himself when studying Go so the shadows under the other boy's eyes and the tired, hollow eyed stare didn't really faze him.

Plus there was also the game itself. After the fact, it was all he cared about.

"Sai would like to play with you," was the first thing the boy said to him and because Akira wasn't much of a people person and sometimes the nuances and hints in people's behaviour and actions and the slight shifts in their tones of voice just completely escaped him, Akira just laughed and nodded.

"We can play in the back," he said and motioned the other to go ahead. "How old are you?"

"Sai is one thousand years," the boy said, his voice dull and flat, and okay, thought Akira, that was a little strange.

But then he was soundly defeated by Sai and for a long while, that was pretty much all he could recall – the game, and the defeat.

 

* * *

 

 

Akari stopped telling Hikaru to stop being creepy. The only effect it had was making Hikaru even creepier.

"Sai thinks you should try playing Go," Hikaru said, his voice dead and toneless.  "Sai thinks you might like it."

"I am never, ever trying your creepy old man game! And stop talking about Sai!  There is no Sai!"

"You're making Sai sad, Akari. Do you want to make Sai sad?"

"As matter of fact, Hikaru, yes – if it makes Sai go away!"

Hikaru projectile vomited on her.

 

* * *

 

 

"Are you… absolutely sure about this, Kaga?" Tsutsui asked uncertainly. "I mean, not just about sneaking him into a tournament even though he'd not yet a Haze student, but…"

He looked over to where Shindo was hovering over a pair of students from another school. They both looked extremely uncomfortable and Tsutsui could just hear Shindo going "… Sai thinks you are cheating, are you cheating? Sai doesn't like cheaters, cheaters make Sai sad…"

"What are you talking about?" Kaga asked with a laugh. "Shindo's freaking priceless."

Seeing the other students squirm away from Shindo's flat eyed stare, Tsutsui sighed. "That's one word for it, I guess."

They won the tournament – though whether it was actual skill or because all their opponents lost their nerve… Tsutsui decided not to even think about it.

 

* * *

 

 

"You should come play with us in the Go Club, Mitani. Sai thinks you would like it in the Go Club. Sai thinks we could have fun together.."

"Stay away from me you creepy freaking weirdo!"

"Come play with Sai, Mitani."

"Stay away!"

 

* * *

 

 

Kaneko stared flatly at Shindo, whose bottomless, hollow eyes met hers head on. Neither had a hint of expression, though Shindo's gaunt face made the lack of expression even more pronounced.

"You really are a creepy guy, Shindo," she said after a while.

Shindo's expression didn't even twitch. "Sai would like to play. Would you like to play with Sai, Kaneko?" he asked, his voice almost droning.

She snorted.

 

* * *

 

 

Sai appeared on the Internet and unnerved everyone not just with the tremendous strength – but the garbled gibberish he wrote in answer to chat requests.

"It has to be a code of some kind," people said. "He's telling us something."

"Or he's just smashing his face against the keyboard randomly," others said. "He could be doing that too."

People tried to decode it and the closest anyone got to making it out was player named zelda who decoded a couple of words out of the gibberish.

"Help me," Waya muttered. The hell was that supposed to mean?

 

* * *

 

 

Then Shindo Hikaru joined the Insei – and no one was happy for it – not even Ochi who happily gave away his place as the resident "creepy child" to Shindo. Because there was creepy and then there was Shindo Hikaru.

"Sai would like to play," Shindo droned in place of traditional greetings and played like he was drugged – and though no one could beat him, he still didn't know how to hold stones properly.

"Why are you even here? " Ochi demanded. "You could take the pro exam right now and beat it!"

Shindo stared at him empty for a long while. "Sai thinks I need help with my people skills, and insei will help me practice," he then admitted.

"You need a help with lot of things,  Shindo, and people skills are least of your problems."

 

* * *

 

Toya Meijin was having some second thoughts.

"Sai would like to play," the creepy a child his son had declared to be his rival all but chanted at him. "Sai has been looking forward to this game and Sai would like to play now."

Maybe Go-world wasn't a suitable growing environment for preteens after all. Top rookie of the year or not, there was something just… off about Shindo.

 

* * *

 

"Come play with Sai, Toya," Hikaru Shindo droned at Akira in dead voice. "Come play."

Yeah, thought Ogata Juudan. Not getting within ten feet of that one.


	13. Children's Day, 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still unbetaed, sorry

Akira paced in the front of Shindo school, waiting for his rival to be let out. He was missing school for this himself and he knew he'd hear about it later, but... but if didn't matter.

Shindo had been missing games. Two so far, and no word why not - he just hadn't shown up. All this time, Akira had been waiting to see how he would do, how far he'd gotten - whether the true skill he knew Shindo had would finally start shining through again... but Shindo was not showing up to his oteai games.

Yesterday, Shindo would've played a 4-dan. Akira had been looking forward to it - Takei-4-dan would've finally given Shindo a proper challenge and Akira could've seen...

But no.

The bell rang and Akira looked up anxiously. Moment later, people started filing out the Haze Middle High, students walking and running off at the end of the day. Akira scanned the crowd, looking for the familiar flash of yellow fringe and - there!

Shindo was running down the couple of front steps, skipping on one foot to try and trying to kick his other shoe properly on, his head tilted to the side and he was - talking on a mobile phone.

"- I'll swing by the store, is there anything - yeah, yeah, um, let me check -" Shindo said to whoever he was talking to and dug out his wallet from his book bag. He ruffled through the contents. "Yeah I think I got enough. We need anything else? We got formula and stuff? I can -" 

He stopped, phone pinned between ear and shoulder, wallet still in hands, and stared at Akira in surprise. Akira stared back. Shindo looked... terrible. His hair stuck out every which way and there were bags under his eyes.

He looked like hadn't slept in days, actually.

"Yeah," Shindo said to the phone belatedly. "Yeah, alright. I'm on my way. Bye."

Shindo hung up and stared at Akira some more.

"You missed games," Akira said accusingly.

"... yeah," Shindo agreed and sighed, rubbing a hand through his hair. "Yeah, um. I'm gonna be missing them for a bit, actually - I called in though. Yesterday. They said they'll shuffle the matches again. I'm not skipping, I'm, uh. On a leave. Starting yesterday."

Akira grit his teeth to stop himself saying, accusingly, that he was still going to school, wasn't he, was school really more important than Go?

"Why?" he asked instead. "You... just became pro. And..."

And they had a game coming. It had been scheduled. An official, professional game. He'd been waiting for _so_ long.

Shindo sighed and pushed the phone in his pocket. "I uh..." he hesitated, looking conflicted. "I mean yeah, but - I got a thing I gotta take care. Um..." he looked away, and then his shoulders slumped. "You know what - come with me, okay?"

Akira blinked as Shindo walked past him at brisk pace. "Okay?" he asked and then ran after Shindo. "Um, where are we going?"

"Store first. Gotta buy stuff. Then home," Shindo answered, shrugging his backpack on better. "My home, I mean. I - no one believes it, so, um. I'm just gonna show you."

Akira stared at him, confused. Shindo didn't say anything else though, just hurried away, forcing Akira to almost jog to keep up with him.

They popped in a convenience store where Akira trailed Shindo through the store and to the - baby isle? Shindo picked up a plastic packet of baby wipes, checking the back before giving a considering look at the shelves. He then tucked a packet of diapers under his arm too, and then stalked towards the cashier, looking embarrassed and determined both.

Akira wonders for a moment if Shindo had a baby sibling - but... somehow...

They left the store and Akira awkwardly followed Shindo down the street and another, all the way to what turned out to be Shindo's home.

There was a baby wailing inside.

Akira stopped, thinking, wondering, his eyes widening - and then they were inside, Shindo dropped his purchases and backpack at the kitchen before hurrying further in. Helpless, dragged along as if by invisible tether, Akira followed and then watched as Shindo reached, took a baby from a woman who was probably his mother and - and what? Just, what?

"Hey, hey, shh, Sai, what's this noise about? You're being a little whiner again, you little whiner," Shindo murmured to the kid who hiccuped at him miserably. He was holding the baby secure against his chest - comfortable, experienced. _Parental_. "Come on, you brat, shh."

"I swear, he has a timer or something," Shindo's mother said with a fond sigh. "He started fussing precisely ten past three. He's got your schedule pegged."

"Yeah," Shindo sighed and nuzzled the baby, one hand gently at the baby's neck, other at his bottom. "Has me on a goddamn leash and he knows it, the little bastard."

Akira stared, speechless. Shindo's mother looked up at him, looking surprised. "Friend from school, Hikaru?"

"Nah. The Association," Shindo said, as the baby snuffled quietly, easing up now that he had his face pressed against Shindo's neck. "Um..."

"Toya Akira," Akira quick introduced himself and bowed. The world was tilting - shifting - under him, but that was no reason to be rude. "I'm Shindo's colleague at the Go Association. Its a pleasure to meet you."

"Oh! You too. Shindo Michiko, Hikaru's mother," she said and bowed back. "You're a pro player too, then? And so young... I guess Hikaru isn't that much of a odd one then, since he has age mates in the association."

Shindo snorted at that and Akira almost did too.

Shindo's mother smiled awkwardly, glancing between then, at the baby. "I'll... I'll just get you some drinks, and a bottle for Sai, alright?"

And so Akira was alone. With Shindo. And a baby.

"Sai?" Akira asked faintly.

"Yeaah," Shindo sighed and walked past him to a living room where he collapsed to sit on a couch, the baby held gently against his chest. "Meet Shindo Sai. My kid."

Akira sat down across Shindo, slow, staring, trying to comprehend. Failing _miserably_. "... yours?"

"Yeah," Shindo agreed and looked at the kid. "Mine. I even got a paternity test to prove it and everything. All mine."

Holy shit.

Akira swallowed, trying to - to - but Shindo was his age! They were fourteen! Shindo was fourteen! "Um - did you know - I mean - uh... when?"

"Children's day," Shindo answered. "So, couple of weeks back. And no, I didn't. It just - he just... he just was there," he admitted and bounced his knee with nervous energy. He was in his school uniform - his  _middle high uniform_ because he was _fourteen_ \- and he had a kid. A baby. _His_ baby.

Akira could not make sense of it. It was like suddenly, for all his plans and wishes and hopes and confidence, he didn't actually know Shindo at all. The boy sitting across him in his school uniform, with his bleached hair, gently staring at his kid, at his son, he was like a complete stranger.

"You're fourteen?" Akira asked helplessly, as if it would make this all suddenly make sense.

"Fifteen," Shindo sighed and shook his head. "Everyone and their mother has gone over it - everyone had a cat and a dog and fucking apoplexy over it. Yeah, it's a freaking scandalous travesty, yeah I'm too young, I got my whole life ahead, I will never know the freedom of... of whatever. Adulthood without baby, whatever. It don't matter. Fifteen or fucking fifty, Sai's my kid. That's all."

How wasn't he freaking out? Akira had little to do with this, and he was freaking out! But no, Shindo just sat there, looking tired and loose limbed, kid on his chest like it belonged there.

Shindo's mother stepped back in then with a tray in hand. There were couple of glasses there - and a baby bottle. "Here," she added, and handed Shindo a gauze.

Akira watched, somehow stunned, as Shindo handled the baby, shifted him in different position, gauze at ready. And then he begun feeding the kid.

"So... yeah. I'm going on a bit of a leave from the professional games and stuff," Shindo said, staring down at the kid, his face strange, almost tender. "I'm trying to finish school early, I can't miss a day if I want to get it done before summer. After that, though, I'll start playing again."

"Alright," Akira said quietly.

Shindo looked up. "Alright?"

"Well... yes," Akira said and reached for the glass Shindo's mother had brought, just to have something to do with his hands. "You have responsibilities. Father says - family should always come first. So... I understand."

He didn't, though. He didn't _at all_.

Shindo obviously didn't believe him anymore than Akira did but he nodded. "Alright," he said slowly.

"Alright," Akira repeated and twiddled with the glass. "So... Sai?" he asked.

"Well. Yeah," Shindo shrugged and cracked awkward, strange smile. "Obviously."

It sounded like the most terrible confession Akira had ever heard and it made his stomach clench. Everything about this was kind of terrible. Everything, except Shindo's hand on little Sai's neck, supporting his head gently as the boy suckled on the milk.

Akira's hands shook a little and he put the glass back down, not having drink a drop.

Shindo's eyes were on the baby again. They were gentle too.

Akira had never considered Shindo gentle and he wasn't sure what to do with that. 

**Author's Note:**

> Proofread by Darlene and Tsuyuhime


End file.
